New school suspensions rulebook to be drafted as early as Term 3
NSW Education Minister Prue Car has announced a radical overhaul of the rules for suspending misbehaving school students, declaring the current policy “a disaster” for principals and teachers.
Education
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Education Minister Prue Car has pledged an overhaul of the suspension and behaviour procedures for public school students, declaring the current policy “does not work” and has resulted in principals feeling powerless and unable to take action against violent pupils.
Ms Car said the existing policy will be scrapped and a new draft policy will be up for consultation at the beginning of Term 3 in July, to be finalised for Term 4.
“The suspensions policy that the previous government put in place has been a disaster,” she said. “We needed a fresh start.”
Her predecessor, Sarah Mitchell, introduced a policy in October 2022 which halved the number of days a student could be suspended and limited the number of times they could be suspended to three.
“One principal … told me the recent story of a student who had assaulted others at the school. They then assaulted a staff member. That student then assaulted that principal,” Ms Car said.
“When that principal rang the phone number to report the incident and – as he understood the process – to seek authority to deal with the student he was left waiting for hours.
“Let me be clear – principals do not have to ring the incident response hotline in order to suspend a student. They have authority themselves.
“Nonetheless, principals and staff should not be waiting hours on hold or waiting for a response.”
The Minister revealed her plans for the draft policy on Wednesday at the NSW Secondary Principals Council’s annual conference in Tamworth, where President Craig Peterson said the overhaul has been a long time coming.
“We’ve been calling for this for some time, we had serious concerns about the previous policy,” he said.
“It led to a major confrontation between us and the Department of Education. It’s been highly problematic, it was a very confusing policy and undermined the authority of classroom teachers and public school principals to act on misbehaviour.”
Mr Peterson said having the new procedures in place for Term 4 was “ambitious” but with school staff and parents alike fearing for the safety of students the new guidelines will be welcomed “the sooner the better”.
In Semester 1 of last year, approximately one in a hundred primary school students were suspended, and six per cent of high schoolers copped suspensions.
Aboriginal students account for more than a quarter of those despite making up about nine per cent of the student population.
“No one wants any students from any background disproportionately represented,” Ms Car said.
“But we must have safe schools. We must have safe workplaces. And we must have safe classrooms.
“It is impossible to lift literacy and numeracy outcomes for students if classrooms are out of control.”
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